


this is not the way i wanted things to be

by kalypsobean



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Fluff and Angst, Genetic Engineering, M/M, Mpreg, POV Alternating, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a future where genetic engineering has created fertile men, Jensen and Jared are forced into an arranged marriage for their parents benefit. This is what happens when Jensen gets pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not the way i wanted things to be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drkbella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drkbella/gifts).



> For drkbella as part of the [mpreg_xmas_xchg](http://mpreg-xmas-xchg.livejournal.com/) 2013\. I went with your likes of arranged marriage, sci-fi, h/c, romance and schmoop. It ended up with a genetic a/b/o like system and a bit of angst because Jensen got grumpy without his coffee and missed his Jared.

**prologue.**

Jared knows something is wrong when the nurse comes out from behind her little counter.

"Jensen, would you come with me, please?" she says. Jared gets up too, but the nurse glares at him. "We need to speak to Jensen alone."

Jared has never felt so helpless in all his life, and the frightened look Jensen gives him before being whisked off around some corner and out of sight just makes it worse. He's been to every appointment with Jensen since they were put together, and now he's got all these thoughts running through his mind about how Jensen's going to die and they won't tell him until after or maybe they want to do more tests and Jensen has to be locked in a sterile bubble, alone. Jensen's been so sick, lately; Jared had just thought it was a cough, then the flu, then cancer, then being slowly poisoned, and Jensen had said he was fine and it could wait.

Well, clearly it couldn't, and now Jensen was in there without him and he was out here with magazines and chairs and a receptionist who would not even tell him to sit back down when he asked for information.

 

~*~

 

Jensen, though, knew exactly what it was as soon as he was asked to come in alone. He remembers hearing stories, from his sister, from his friends, when it had happened to them. 

"Have you told him?" the doctor says. Jensen shakes his head. He wouldn't even know where to begin, let alone how to explain it to himself. He puts up with the questions about his private life and life with Jared purely because he needs to save his strength for what comes after. Besides, the doctor doesn't need to know that their parents married them off to each other in a heartbeat to secure some company deal, that they just live in the same house and have sex only when there's nobody else.

Jensen always tops.

He doesn't know how this happened.

"Jensen? Jensen?" The doctor has been speaking but Jensen stopped listening when the sound in his ears got too loud and the room got even whiter, however that was possible. "Jensen, did you even know you're a carrier?"

The thing is, Jensen suspected, and he'd been careful, and until now, he'd been able to ignore it. But if Jared knew, things would never be the same.

 

**one.**

This is how things are: before genetic modification was banned, someone decided to play God and found a way to reverse engineer fertility, so that instead of IVF, sterile couples could have five sessions of gene therapy and then be able to conceive naturally. What was discovered, when those children were having their own children, was that the modified genes could be passed on, even to boys, and the side effects were rather brutal. They looked the same, but they ran a higher risk for most diseases, the strain on their bodies shortened their life expectancy, and that was if they survived more than one birth.

But the genes were dominant, and they kept being passed on, until they were unpredictable and the technology to reverse them was destroyed.

Jared knows all this because he's read all the pamphlets and every website and every book he could find; it's all he's thought about since Jensen came out of the room on a stretcher and the doctor told him that he was going to be a father, if everything went well.

Jared feels bad that he hates Jensen's parents a little too; they had to have known it was possible. And yet, they married him off to Jared without so much as ensuring he'd have access to good medical care. Jared's just grateful that his parents' half of the deal meant he got a great allowance in return for the work he put into the company, and that it would stay that way.

 

The house feels a bit empty without Jensen; he hasn't brought anyone home or gone out since the news, and he hasn't told anyone. Jensen won't even see him, so Jared figures that he doesn't want anyone else to know. It's happened enough that people are no longer surprised, but Jensen's always been a private person, and Jared's learnt to respect that. Jensen's the one who insisted on separate rooms when they went house hunting, and who makes sure they contribute equally in terms of bills and groceries. 

Jensen has self-respect and pride.

Jared won't be the one to take that away. He does wish, though, that Jensen would let him be there, to see the baby growing inside him and to be asked to run out and buy peanut butter cups at two in the morning, or just to hold Jensen's hand and tell him it's okay.

 

~*~

 

Jensen has to have classes. He's not sure what it is he dislikes more - that he has to have them at all, or that the classes are so inane that he feels like they're designed for people who have no brain cells. He's fairly sure that of all the things that happened to the human race with gene mods, a loss in intelligence was not one of them. A lot of this he knows from being around kids, for Pete's sake; he really wants to know who actually doesn't know how to properly hold a baby and who actually thinks that getting any baby to follow a rigid diet plan is possible, especially once they get to the 'throw food across the room' stage he'd been witness to before he left home.

And ended up here.

He can't even sleep some nights and the nurses make tsking sounds at him when they see the bags under his eyes, but he's terrified and he misses his things and everything being the way he likes them, and he misses coffee. He knows they keep saying they have to monitor him; when he's not in classes he's getting his blood drawn or doing exercises or lying in some machine or another. It's never any easier, even when the baby starts to move and it really starts to sink in beyond the obvious differences around him.

He's having a baby and it's inside him and he's responsible for it and it has to be Jared's and they won't even let him make outside calls in case it's too stressful.

He's heard of hospitals protecting people who are in bad relationships, but he'd never considered this thing with him and Jared bad - awkwardly defined, yes, and not entirely to his liking, but he'd been adjusting, damnit, and Jared wasn't a bad person. His parents could have picked worse, or needed money instead of land and political influence and put him in a harem. Hell, it's not like they weren't halfway into making it work.

Jensen decides that the next time there's an argument over his sleeping, or another kind of medication or unnecessary class, he's going to ask for Jared. Hell, if he can have a baby, Jared could at least learn to help out, if nothing else, although he'd bet Jared's been shopping.

He shoves the word 'lonely' out of his mind.

 

**two.**

Jared gets in to see Jensen when there's only two weeks to go, or so he's told. It's not Jensen that he sees, though, at least not the Jensen he knows. This one is pale and all out of proportion, and he can tell that nobody's been looking after him.

"Contraband," he says brightly, as soon as the door closes behind him. He even has some - Jensen's old reading glasses, pencils, some crossword books, and the biggest plush toy he could get in the gift shop. Jensen's smile is wan, and reminds Jared of a burn victim, with skin stretched thinly over far too much bone.

"I'mma feed you soon as they let you out of here," he says, and then he sits on the bed and holds Jensen's hand until they kick him out. Jensen doesn't say a word and it kills him inside.

He's already taken time off from the company, in exchange for biweekly dinner with his parents as soon as Jensen's up to it, and he's decorated the best nursery ever, but it doesn't feel like enough. Their house is big enough, too, though he's glad he doesn't have dogs yet like he'd hoped, since he knows Jensen would be overly (and adorably) concerned about the dog eating the baby or something. There's even a spare room off the nursery, probably intended for a nanny or a second child. But, Jared's decided, that's going to be Jensen's room; not the one he has for sleeping, but somewhere he can go and just be without worrying that he's doing something wrong by being away from the baby.

There's a music shop on the way home and it has a vintage guitar in the window. He buys it with the money Jensen's parents sent for the baby, and soon the entire room takes shape around it. Jared's dad even donated an old computer music player to the cause and his mom comes in to help him paint it and fills the fridge with all the foods she remembers being able to eat after he was born. 

Jared won't tell Jensen that his parents didn't even ask if he was alright. That's the only thing on his mind when he gets the call, though, not even whether the baby will live. As long as early natural labour doesn't kill Jensen before they make things good instead of okay.

 

~*~

 

Jensen knows it's not normal. People have died giving birth - boys have died. This isn't safe. It's one of the things they taught in classes, one of the horror stories about not doing things right and exactly as told. Well, they worked on him, because he's terrified and a lot of that is that he might die, or be horribly disfigured, or that the baby will die and he'll be fine and even more of a disappointment to everyone. 

He asks for Jared and they tell him no, it needs to be a sterile environment for the baby. He wants to scream; he's been in here for seven months, isn't he clean enough? But he can't, because he opens his mouth and then there's a tube down it, and his head goes a bit fuzzy, and maybe not in that order. They're talking about him, the doctors, using words like 'improperly formed' and 'contraindicated' and 'unprecedented', and he doesn't want to be someone's science paper, he wants to go home and getting the baby out means he can do that. He pushes down, like they said in class and in every movie ever made, but all it does is make him want to pee, and make it hurt more.

Maybe he missed something about this in class; he was scheduled for next week, after all, and he's not going to be able to attend the labour prep ones due to a slight case of giving birth. 

 

He sees a ball of fluffy brown hair, briefly, through some glass and over people's heads; nameless faceless people who are coming at him with knives and big balls of white cloudlike stuff. Wishing he could fall asleep, he watches as they touch him and move him around; it doesn't hurt anymore, somewhat like he's floating, but then all he hears is screaming. 

It might be his own.

He realises he doesn't know anything about the baby; they don't tell him anything, so he doesn't know if it's a boy or a girl, if they did a gene sequence, if there was anything wrong. He hasn't thought about a name or whether to get a teddy or a blankie.

He's sure Jared thought of everything. Jared's probably really excited. Jared will step up and be responsible and serious and then crack a big smile and make baby noises while Jensen goes to sleep.

 

**three.**

This whole thing is kind of annoying Jared. He's already sworn that Jensen will top for the rest of their lives, if they ever get time, because it's really not fair for Jared to have their baby at home while Jensen is still in hospital, after all they did to him. Even if it has just been two days, and just for them to make sure Jensen won't split his stitches and has taken his supplements, it doesn't feel right.

He's got the door open and is waiting while Jensen hobbles up the garden path and into the house. Jared pulled the lazychair down from the rec room and has it in the living room, and he's grateful when Jensen sinks down into it and swears straight away.

"Do you want to see our baby?" he says, but Jensen just glares at him. "Right, coffee," he says. It's not on the pamphlets the nurse sent over as an allowed food, but he's fairly sure he can look after Jensen just fine, or at least better than they did in the hospital. Jensen smiles, and Jared thinks that means he agrees.

 

He takes Jensen on a tour, later, but all Jensen does is look at everything Jared's done. Jared is not disappointed, but it still hurts, even though it makes sense when he opens the door to the nursery and Jensen hovers, rather than coming in.

"We don't have to do any shit that they say, Jen, not anymore," Jared says, and sees Jensen start to cry. He touches Jensen for the first time since before, then, and he feels how frail Jensen has become just in the way his hand fits all the way around Jensen's upper arm, and he can feel the bone beneath his fingers. He guides Jensen to the other room, and lets go only when Jensen's laid out on the sofa. The music system has a remote control, and Jared's dad helped him load songs into it, so he just hands the remote to Jensen and tilts his head to say he'll be with the baby when Jensen's ready.

It should be scary how well he knows Jensen even though things weren't like that with them, but it's not. Music starts, and Jared closes the door halfway, just to mute it. The baby wakes anyway, as if it knows that its daddy is home and nearby.

 

~*~

 

Jensen waits a few days before asking, because it's stupid and he feels bad that he broke down while Jared was showing him how the house was all done up and baby safe, but he needs to know.

"Did you name it?" he says, when Jared brings him cookies and his morning coffee. Jensen's been doing the morning feed, and he doesn't know his baby's name.

"I waited for you," Jared says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "It's a he, by the way."

Jensen feels himself go pale. "Did they... did you..."

"Dad pulled some strings and had him sequenced. He's fine," Jared says, and takes the baby away before Jensen drops him in his relief. "No carrier gene. We got lucky."

Jensen smiles; Jared looks good with their baby, although he doesn't understand why he's got a mushy feeling in his tummy. "Eat your cookies, he can be baby for another few minutes, at least. As long as we have a name before Mom gets here."

 

When Jared's put the baby to bed Jensen still hasn't thought of a name. Jared comes up and crawls in beside him; Jensen pulls away a bit when Jared touches the scar, it still hurts, and he doesn't know enough about how it got there to have assimilated it into his body image. "Too soon?" Jared says, and moves his hand up onto Jensen's - thankfully flat - chest. But without asking, Jared scoots closer, until his entire body is snug along Jensen's side and his arm is casually flung over Jensen's other shoulder. 

"Can we do this?" Jensen says, because Jared's habit of thinking after speaking is haphazardly contagious, and clearly passed by close physical proximity.

"Nobody says we can't if we want to," Jared says. "Now sleep, no serious talk until your coffee."

It's easy to sleep here, with Jared, like this. It isn't dark, and it doesn't smell, and it's quiet, and it feels comfortable, safe. Jensen drifts, even as Jared starts to snore, and he doesn't fight it.

Jensen dreams of fluffy clouds but there are babies on them and Jared smiling, and he doesn't wake up until Jared gets out of bed. There's crying, high and tinny, from the speaker linked to the baby's room, and Jared shushes him before leaving.

Jared leaves the door open so Jensen can see the corridor light.

 

**epilogue.**

Jared knows something is wrong when Jensen comes out from the doctor's office, looking like he hadn't spent the last six months at home and finally getting used to people again. For a moment, it's deja vu, and he has to steady himself on the chair and forgoes standing to meet his husband.

He follows Jensen outside, to the car, and drives them home without a word. Jensen goes to the nursery and relieves Jared's mom, who takes over making coffee so Jared can follow.

"We can't have any more," Jensen says, as if it's an apology.

Jared puts his arms around Jensen from behind and rests his chin on Jensen's shoulder. Jensen's hands come to rest on his after a few minutes, and Jared knows that Jensen is looking at their baby, thinking, and will talk if he wants to, when he's ready.

Until then, Jared would rather have this. He'd rather be able to hold Jensen any time he wanted to, be able to kiss him and talk to him and listen to the guitar when Jensen thinks he's upstairs.

"Thanks, Mom," he says, when she brings the coffee. Silently, she leaves them, and Jared knows she understood.

 

~*~

 

Jensen is exhausted, still, and isn't sure he'll ever really get himself back. Jared tries, and Jensen's lost count of the coffees and hugs and millions of ways Jared's being considerate, but Jensen always has to ruin it by thinking. He isn't the same, even though he does the same things and even gets to work, writing songs when the mood strikes him.

Sometimes it doesn't seem like a bad thing; he's sure Jared loves him, and it's not just because of the baby. The baby is the reason Jensen never walks out when he wants to be by himself, when there's too much in his head. He's not everything, or the only thing, holding them together.

Jensen thinks he'll have to do something nice for Jared, but Jared's changed too, and nothing he thinks of is enough.

But Jared comes to him at night, every night.

"We should share a room, make this official," Jensen says. Jared leans over him, and Jensen's overwhelmed so easily, just by Jared's lips on his, and Jared's hands, and Jared's skin; he pins Jared down and puts a knee either side of Jared's hips, and rubs their cocks together. "What do you say?"


End file.
